Tag: Reunions

16 and Pregnant

Tyler and Catelynn Baltierra with 3 of their daughters

Not a space I’ve a tendency to inhabit but today I saw this Instagram note – Tyler Baltierra Reveals He & Wife Catelynn “Got In Trouble” For Saying The Word ‘Sister’ About Their Adopted Daughter. This couple’s first pregnancy was the subject of an MTV program where the end result was that they placed their first born daughter, Carly, for adoption.

One commenter said – Oh my god , this story makes me so sad because they gave Carly up thinking Brandon and Theresa (B&T) had more financial resources. Tyler and Catelynn have stayed together and Carly now has full siblings. This couple probably has more money than the adoptive parents. Their daughters are full blooded siblings and B&T can’t deny that reality. They took advantage of poor teens and it’s backfired.

It is said that the couple have had their ups and downs with Carly’s birth parents over the years — particularly after the Davises did not want the Teen Mom: The Next Chapter stars to show Carly’s face on social media or the show — the families reunited in May 2023, where Carly got to spend time with her three biological sisters.

In June of 2012, Catelynn wrote – Carly “has the biggest attitude now, like Tyler. She’s so headstrong and confident. It’s funny. She’s really good at counting and knowing all her colors. She started preschool and she’s really doing great in school.”

In April of 2015, the adoptive mother Teresa Davis was quoted saying – “We have a platform to speak on adoption from an adoptive parent perspective that nobody else has. The baby biologically is yours, but in every other way, she is our child, and you have to trust our decisions.”

In May of 2019, Tyler wrote wrote in a touching birthday tribute to Carly – “Ten years ago yesterday, we were only 17. Ten years ago, we brought you into the world. 10 years ago, we only got to hold you by ourselves for a half hour in the hospital as we just cried and stared at you, remembering every little detail of how absolutely perfect you were, since we knew that even though we just met, we had to say goodbye. 10 years ago, we had to make the hardest decision of our lives and give you everything your innocent life deserved that we just couldn’t provide at the time. 10 years ago, we held each other and wept as we watched you drive away in the back of the car with the only parents that were worthy to be yours. … We love you so much & hopefully get to see you soon baby girl. Happy Birthday Carly!”

Being celebrity influencers, the saga or drama has been ongoing. You can read more at US Magazine.com’s Celebrity Moms feature where I got my quotes above. I’m not delving in further but if it interests you, here is the LINK>Catelynn Lowell and Tyler Baltierra’s Quotes About Daughter Carly and Her Adoptive Parents.

Her Biggest Mistake

From an all things adoption group I belong to – Everyday I hear natural mothers share how giving up their child was the biggest mistake they ever made. I see them share their heartache and pain that sometimes is spanning decades. Sometimes I just don’t understand how hopeful adoptive parents can continue going through the process of adopting, if they are listening to these women. I mean what do they tell themselves to make it ok to take someone’s child, knowing the pain it could cause. The hopeful adoptive parents in groups seeing this, do you feel guilt ? How do you reconcile another’s pain for your gain ?

Some random comments –

From someone adopted as an infant –  What’s interesting is as an adopted child I was almost raised to believe it was my “responsibility” to also adopt. In reality, I longed for genetic mirroring and went on to have 2 wonderful children of my own (who luckily got to meet my genetic, biological mom, uncle, and half sister 3 weeks ago, for a weeklong visit of beautiful reunion)! I had my first child at 31, second at 33, and did not really start to come out of the fog until after they were born. I wonder if I had been unable to have children, if I would have still felt adoption was an option, or my “responsibility”, or if my nature would have known otherwise.

From a mother who “lost” her child to adoption – Family friends adopted my son, knowing that I longed to parent. They watched me receive pressure and coercion from my own family, offered me no practical help (although were very “kind” to me), and then told themselves that I made my own decision and that my son’s adoption was God’s will. They even kept the adoption open. So they saw my pain very openly until eventually I pulled all the pain inside. Obviously no one around me cared. Even IF no adoptee had ever expressed trauma, wouldn’t our own lifelong suffering be enough reason to end this practice? And then in fact, on top of our tremendous pain, sits the pain of our children. Wtf is wrong with our culture, that we would rather throw away the struggling than to help them?

From another mother of loss – I know that my daughter, who just turned 35 and is still very very much in the fog, was told that she couldn’t have any contact with me “for safety reasons”, which of course was a complete lie (It was a private adoption, not a Child Protective Services case or anything like that) and I think that idea that I was “dangerous”, even without saying specifically that I was, was incredibly scary, damaging and alienating to her.

The sister of an adoptee shares – a woman who had adopted a newborn was saying the baby’s actual mother was texting, saying she regretted giving her baby up for adoption. The adoptive mother was getting advice like “block and move on”, which is insanely cruel. I advised the adoptive parent to “do the right thing and return the baby to it’s mother who clearly misses her baby”. I was then dog piled on for even suggesting that because the actual mom had already signed away her rights, so the actual mom didn’t have a leg to stand on. The selfishness of many adoptive parents just drives me up a wall. I probably should have not been so blunt in my reply as I was blocked and didn’t get to see what happened but I couldn’t stand by without advocating for the reunification of this family. An adoptee replied – “I can’t imagine having someone else’s baby and not immediately taking steps to return the baby after receiving those texts. Do these people have hearts?” Even a foster/adoptive mother notes – “I don’t see how you can acknowledge someone’s deep suffering and when it is well within your ability to assuage that suffering… withhold the remedy. Even if it comes as a great cost to you… that’s what we are all here for. To love one another. Serve one another. I just can’t wrap my mind around that.”

Ending Adoption – Chinese Babies

From Adoption.com – LINK>6 Things You Should Know – #1 There are no babies. Though dated (2018), “there are just no babies available for international adoption (in China). The world has changed a lot in the past twenty or so years, and while at one point it was common for parents to quickly bring home a very young girl, that is no longer that case. The children who are coming home now are older and have special needs of one sort or another. Younger children who are young and healthy are being adopted domestically, and it is not necessary to have them adopted overseas. This is a good thing.

More current is this article in The Guardian dated Sept 5 2024 – LINK>China says it is ending foreign adoptions. Here is a statistic – US families have adopted 82,674 children from China, the most of any country.

At a daily briefing on Thursday, Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese foreign ministry, said Beijing was no longer allowing intercountry adoptions of children from China, with the only exception for blood relatives to adopt a child or a stepchild. Mao did not explain the decision other than to say that it was in line with the spirit of relevant international conventions. “We express our appreciation to those foreign governments and families, who wish to adopt Chinese children, for their good intention and the love and kindness they have shown,” she added.

In letters sent to some adoption agencies on Wednesday, and shared on social media, the US state department said it had been told by Chinese authorities that all other pending adoptions were cancelled, except those with already issued travel authorizations. In a phone call with US diplomats in China, Beijing said it “will not continue to process cases at any stage” other than those cases covered by an exception clause. The embassy is seeking clarification in writing from China’s ministry of civil affairs, the US state department said on Thursday. The state department said: “We understand there are hundreds of families still pending completion of their adoption, and we sympathize with their situation.”

The Nanchang Project, a US-based group that works with Chinese adoptees and their adoptive parents to help adoptees find their biological families said the announcement marked “the end of an era”. It added: “It is our profound hope that the remaining children in China receive the attention, medical care, and love they deserve.”

The number of newborn babies in China fell to 9.02 million in 2023, and the overall population declined for the second consecutive year. Amid a series of government measures designed to encourage more births, China’s decades-long one-child policy – which was a key driver of babies, especially girls, being put up for adoption – was phased out.

The Fam-A-Bam on Labels

Today’s story (not my own) – Topic: labels

I am the maternal aunt of my niece whom we adopted 9 months ago. (There has been a Termination of Parental Rights for both parents.) She is now 8 and first came to stay with us at 4. So we have always had that familial label of her calling me her aunt and me calling her my niece.

Since adoption (and a bit before) she has been switching her labels describing us. It’s aunt or uncle, my parents, my mommy and daddy. Which is 1000% fine. We told her she can call us whatever she likes, whenever she likes. We all know who we are, we’re the fam-a-bam no matter how you call it. And she’s totally happy and we are totally happy to roll with her daily.

I think I’m tripping over myself, over how she defines us to others, when I’m not with her. She’s always been my niece longer than she’s been adopted by me. So, of course that’s what I automatically say. But I feel like because of the adoption I SHOULD be calling her my daughter ? That makes it feel like a society rule that meets actual legal reality. But that doesn’t feel exactly right, because she’s my niece, ya know? And I’m sorry if that sounds off, that’s the best way I can describe it in my head.

I guess I’m wondering, if it’s okay for her to switch off like she does (which she doesn’t currently mind) or if it would be better for her stability to have a set label coming from the adults ? She’s been through so much in her life already, I don’t want to be adding more pressure or anxiety by doing something “wrong”, that could maybe be so grounding as a consistent family label. I know she’s proud of us and I don’t ever want her to feel like I’m (we’re) not proud of her.

Some thoughts from an adoptive parent – my friend raised her grandchild. She had raised her since the age of 1 (guardianship) calling her “Mom”. Her granddaughter always knew she was a grandchild but neither wanted to keep explaining to everyone what had happened to her parents. She is now 16 and still calls her grandmother “Mom”. Her other grandchildren call her by a grandma nickname. That is fine because she can be a grandma to them but the relationships are not the same as with the child she cares for, in a mom role. My niece, who came into care at 9 and was adopted at 12, has always called my sister Molly and my brother-in-law, Ted. Mine was adopted at 9 months and has always called me “Mom” but knowing what I know now, I wish she had called me Gretchen. She reunified at 16 and has no idea what to call anybody. We are working on this with her therapist. Your niece knows her story and society is nosy. Kids just want to fit in. My mom was “Boofa” but on Grandparent’s Day, another young niece introduced her to all her friends as “Grandma” because she thought the other kids would laugh. Let her lead.

blogger’s note – I went through a period of relationship confusion myself. Both of my parents were adopted and those who I knew as my grandparents were actually my parents’ adoptive parents. So after my parents died, I had the good fortune to actually discover the identities of all 4 of my genetic grandparents (though ALL of them were deceased by then, it did open the door to a genetic aunt and some cousins). For awhile, that threw me into emotional confusion. By then, I was already into my 60s and I eventually worked through my emotional discomfort. My son has said to me that I have a very complicated family. Truth.

You Won’t Be Forgotten

Today’s story (not my own) – So my kids were put in foster care. April 29th, my daughter had surgery. Thankfully, we were able to get custody of my son back, only a couple weeks before that. He was doing fine – until he saw the foster parents. The foster mom referred to her husband as his daddy but corrected herself when she realized my mom was listening. We were all there standing waiting in my daughter’s room. We are on guard to certain nothing untrue is said. So are they exceeding legitimate boundaries, when they are refer to themselves as my kid’s mommy and daddy ? They were only fostering for reunification and not adoption. Or am I just being too sensitive about it all ? My son used to say Dada all the time. Since we’ve gotten him back, he hasn’t said it once. I spoke to his developmental therapist about it and she said that they shouldn’t be doing it and that it’s confusing him. I agree. Now, I’m scared for my daughter… I had her with me until she was 4 months old. She will be 1 in July…I need some help to keep all of this in perspective, because as her mother, I am terrified she won’t remember me.

One adoptee offered this reassurance – I met my mom at 40 years old and every cell of my being remembered her. Your daughter will not forget you mama.

Things You Wish You Had Asked

It often happens to many of us after our parents have passed away – I know I have experienced that. We just don’t always know what to ask, when it was possible to receive the answer that we wish we could have known before they are gone.

Now, some adoptive parents are trying to get those kinds of answers for their adoptive children, while there is still some contact with the biological parents.

One adoptive parent noted – My adopted daughter ALWAYS wants to know about her birth family and I really want her to know those details as well. I think it’s important for her identity to know about even the most mundane details, it gives her ways to relate.

One adoptive parent says – My adopted daughter has never said “I wish my mom knew x about me” but consistently asks about her mom’s story and wonders about her. She will want to know your favorite ice cream, color, song… in addition to personality traits and examples of your strengths and flaws. She will want to see herself in you. A hard part of adoption is having unanswered questions. I feel compassion for every adopted child who has to wonder about this ! I can’t even imagine how hard it must be to thirst for more and not have it.

One adoptee notes – the overwhelming emotions in reaction to what many of us always wished we’d known. As the reply above said “someday” she will want to know everything. You may not know or mark any notice of that day but it will come, even if it is just a whisper in her heart of hearts that she never expresses aloud. I, at 48 yo, 29 yrs reunion with bio father and 12 yrs reunion with bio mother still thirstily read/listen to every fact about them both, when they share. Though I admit I rarely openly express to them how deeply I love those moments of revelation of who they are and what made them into the person they are.

The adoptive parent who started this discussion realizes – it is so heartbreaking. I’ve been told many times that what I, as an adoptive parent try to do, is everything adoptees want and unfortunately many adoptive parents turn them down or only save some of the things birth parents share, it’s so sad. The birth parent needs to talk about life, likes, dislikes, hobbies, whatever it is that they do in their daily life .. all we can share, even if it seems mundane.

blogger’s note – I know when I finally connected with one of my adoptee mom’s biological girl cousins – it was the little stuff she shared with me that meant so much. Her “Aunt Lou” was my biological maternal grandmother. She tells me that my grandmother “loved to tease and laugh. I think she thought of herself as bit of a black sheep but she wasn’t. She was very generous with her love to us. She sold Avon and we always got some perfume in pretty bottles. I have really fond memories of her and my uncle. She had a collection of salt and pepper shakers in all kinds of shapes and she would let me play with them. And she always had butterscotch candies because she knew I like them.” None of it earth shattering but all of it precious to me as the granddaughter who never had a chance to know her.

Family Transmission

In my own family, with 2 adoptee parents, I have seen how awareness of their adoptions and acceptance of this a being one of the most natural things in this world (note – it is NOT), led to my 2 sisters giving up their babies to adoption. This is an effect that transmits itself down family lines or so I do believe.

Reading a story today in the Washington Post that I arrived at via Reddit (which my sons do but I have rarely visited) by LINK>Amber Ferguson about a woman who was denied an abortion in Texas and subsequently placed her daughter for adoption. She notes that “We know this story doesn’t reflect the experience of everyone who has been denied an abortion or experienced adoption.”

She linked the Washington Post story, LINK>After abortion attempts, two women now bound by child, which seems to have allowed me to read it. In that story, this caught my own attention – Evelyn, who gave up the baby, was adopted by her own parents at 3 weeks old. Her parents were in their mid-40s at the time and had not been able to conceive naturally. Although Evelyn had always felt close to them, she was petrified to tell them about the pregnancy. “My parents are in their early 70s. I didn’t have a job or any money. I didn’t want to put it on them to raise the baby,” Evelyn remembers thinking.

She had dated a guy she met on social media and they had casual sex. The relationship went downhill swiftly. When her pregnancy test revealed the truth, a single thought swirled through her head: I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child. I can’t have a child. The relationship with her baby’s father ended after she told him about the pregnancy. She immediately began making plans to have an abortion.

She was six weeks and four days pregnant, so the clinic’s staff advised her to go to Oklahoma before that state adopted an abortion ban, too. Evelyn has been reunited with her own birth mother, Tamela, who lived near the Oklahoma border. Her birth mother was a teenager when she became pregnant with Evelyn. With the encouragement of her adoptive mom, Evelyn had found her on Facebook in 2016. They stayed in touch. Evelyn hoped she would be able to understand her predicament. Tamela says she was surprised by Evelyn’s call but immediately understood her fear. “You don’t think it’s going to happen to you, that you’re going to get pregnant so young. And it’s scary. It’s very scary because it happened to me,” Tamela remembers thinking. Evelyn remembers Tamela telling her that she was making a good decision and that ending the pregnancy would be best for her future.

The clinic’s doctor estimated that she was nine, possibly 10 weeks along and handed her a prescription for mifepristone. She should dissolve the pills under her tongue to start a medication abortion, according to the prescription she received from the clinic. She was told to take the remaining four pills, misoprostol, “orally” at home within 48 hours. She didn’t take the second dose until she returned to her home in San Antonio, nearly two days later. She wanted to be at home where she would have more privacy, Evelyn says. Her stomach had started to cramp. Then she saw the blood clots in the toilet. She bled for hours and had spotting for a couple of weeks. Confident it had worked, she says she didn’t bother to make the follow-up doctor’s appointment the clinic had strongly recommended.

When she still hadn’t gotten her menstrual cycle, she took another pregnancy test and was stunned when it came back positive. At the hospital, Evelyn fainted when she saw that there was a heartbeat, and was in and out of consciousness for about five minutes. Perhaps it’s time to consider adoption, the midwife told her. “No, no, no, I can’t go through with the pregnancy,” Evelyn responded.

Evelyn says she didn’t know the pills sometimes didn’t work. It is a rare occurrence, but she later learned that 3 percent of medication abortions fail when gestation reaches 70 days, or 10 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The odds of failure increase if the patient waits longer than prescribed to take the second dose of the medication, several medical experts said.

She hadn’t seriously considered adoption, despite being adopted herself, until it became too late to even have a surgical abortion. Having reached that point, she knew that was the only option. Evelyn says she knew adoption could be positive. Her parents had given her an ideal childhood. 

You can read the rest of the story at the Washington Post link above.

Should I Tell ?

Not saying my image is “the” necklace but it is a lovely tradition to share.

Today’s story (not my own) –

My cousin was adopted out during the Baby Scoop Era and my family is Catholic. She’s 15 yrs older than me and she found us when I was a tween (so like 30 yrs ago). She was very close to her adoptive dad, but not as much with her adoptive mother. They’ve both passed now, and she is close now with us, her birth family including her birth Mom.

So my question is… my Grandma got all her female grandchildren a necklace for our parents to give us at high school graduation. We have a “cousins chat group” which she is in, and I recently posted a pic of the necklace and included her saying that I found one online and I’d love to send her one too because Grandma would want her to have it. She seemed really thankful and said she loved it.

So here’s the thing – my Aunt (her birth Mom, who may have already told her this) told me not too long ago that my Grandma forbid my Aunt to hold her as a newborn and refused to hold her herself, as she knew if they did they’d never be able to let her go. Do I tell her this?? Or is this really overstepping, and just let her enjoy her “cousin necklace”? I just love her so much and want her to know how much her natural family loves her, especially now that her adoptive family is gone.

An adoptee answers – I would not tell her that, it can only bring hurt.

Another agrees but with exceptions – I wouldn’t voluntarily tell her that. But if she asks difficult questions or wants to have all info, even hard to hear info revealed to her, tell her the truth, every time.

An adult adoptee elaborates – I don’t think it’s necessary to say at all, personally, but also it seems completely unrelated to this specific context of giving her the necklace. Like, if the point is to bring her in and include her in a family tradition, why turn around and also tell her “btw granny said/did some awful things when you were born. but she’d want you to have this!” ? It just seems like it would negate the sentiment of the gift – you’d be including her and also othering her at the same time.

Then, there was this sad story – My grandma loves to bring up the fact that my mom dropped me off when I was 2 days old and that my father left the state because “he would’ve killed you, if he stuck around”. There really is no reason to share that information with me. I know about my trauma and have a lot of specific events and memories. Adding more just doesn’t….make sense. Seems like adding salt to the wound.

More from another adoptee – My siblings and cousins know a lot more about my family situation than I do as it’s their lived experience. My cousin and I, in particular, have an extremely close relationship and I believe her when she tells me stories about our family. That said, she does not tell me things that would be personally hurtful to me that she may have overheard. We had this discussion and she asked me, “Do you want to know EVERYTHING?” So I got the watered down version sans quotes. I do know it was my grandmother who insisted I be relinquished. I know how she treated my mother when she was pregnant with me and afterwards. I really don’t need to know more than that.

Personally, I would not share that with her UNLESS she were to ask you, “Do you know if my mother and grandmother ever held me?” And then I would HEAVILY stress that the reason they didn’t was because they loved her so much and knew they would never be able to let her go. Please let her enjoy the cousin necklace and THANK YOU for getting her her own cousin necklace and including her in the group chat.

So many have similar experiences, like this one – My grandparents refused to see me and my mother did not hold me, but she would come look at me. My grandparents couldn’t bring themselves to look at me because I would be real. If I was real then they couldn’t give me away. It is really a conversation that needs to be had between her and her mother. It’s not really a conversation that anyone else can accurately translate.

Love For Them Is Natural

Image from a reunion story at LINK>Cafe Mom

I read this from an adoptive parent today in my all things adoption group – “We as adoptive parents shouldn’t feel threatened when adoptees express their love for their biological parents.”

The comment above came in response to something she had read in a different group (that I am not a member of) – “How do you handle your kids saying they love their biological parents more than you ? My oldest son is 5 but I’ve had him since he was 9 months old. He was allowed overnights with biological mom until he was 2-1/2 years old. He’s only seen her 5 times since she lost custody. From my prospective, he doesn’t really know her because they have rarely been together. The overnights were for one night every month or two. It just hurts my feelings when he says he loves his birth mom and her husband (not his bio dad) and not me”.

One mother of loss noted a bit cynically – OMG did an adoptive parent just admit their own fragility and insecurity ?! Better put this one on the calendar. Someone get this lady a medal. Sorry you weren’t able to erase an unbreakable bond. And as how to “handle” it ? You ACCEPT it. You know what ? Your feelings are not what matters. You get a shrink and you just deal with it. Or you use a 5 year old’s true feelings to alienate the child for your own selfish gain by cutting contact and closing the adoption, like 89% of the rest of the vultures do. He hasn’t seen her but 5 times and they’re rarely together because you haven’t allowed it, because you’re jealous. From overnights to nothing, hmmm what do we think the outcome will be ?

One woman who works with young people wrote – Doing youth work, it’s been enlightening to see how the way the adoptive parents treat the whole subject and how the kid processes it all as they get to an age to understand this stuff with more detail. The ones who have been treated like belongings have had real internal struggles. There was quite a bit of kinship caring in the families we worked with and there’s been more than one “family visit” night where like 25 people have turned up. LOL I’m like, well the room isn’t that big so pick 3 people and I’ll go get the client. A lot of times when the kid was from a really remote location the whole family, like half the community, would come down and camp in the park across the road. Especially elders. I wish the people who had the attitudes like that woman could see that.

An adoptee notes – The adoptive parent expects a 5 year old to manage their feelings, with an adult-level understanding of how to do that, while denying any preferences of his own. Also in my opinion, describing it as hurting her feelings, after expressing disbelief that her son could love his biological mom more, is really her projecting her resentment about that onto the child. He’ll definitely learn not to express anything like that to her – eventually. That’s how it’s getting handled: by him.

An experienced foster/adoptive mom writes – it’s SO important that anyone getting getting involved, particularly in the foster care system, be free of the super common “looking to expand our family”. You can’t expect a child, let alone a traumatized child, to fulfill your emotional needs. That’s not what kids are for. If you’re truly interested in helping kids… Then you should be thrilled they have a great connection to their family. That’s to be celebrated. Like yay! You did a good job! Your kid has connections and is able to recognize those emotions and feels free to verbalize them! It’s just such a fundamental baked-in part of the problem that, when you pay for a child, you think you own it. You have expectations. It’s yours. It’s late stage capitalism in one of its worst forms. The inherent power structure and commodification of *children*.